Ripollés: Valencian Art in the East

The Valencian artist from Castellón, Juan Ripollés, is internationalising his own very personal form of art with a series of sculptures that have been commissioned in China and Taiwan.

Chinese magnate Guang Tsao, has asked Ripolles to create various figures to adorn parks and museums such as Yuzi Paradise at Guilin, Moon Lake Sculpture Park in Shanghai or the ChinPaoSan necropolis of Taiwan, designed by the American architect Steven Hall.

Ripollés had a hard early life; his mother died giving birth to him and he had to work as a horse dung collector, scrap collector and housepainter before travelling to Paris in 1954.

Four years later, his work was hanging on the walls of the prestigious Drouant David Gallery, the same gallery that had earlier exhibited the works of Picasso and Chagall.

For the past five decades, his canvasses and prints have been exhibited at major galleries and museums in Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo and Beijing. His large-format sculptures can be seen in the Parks and streets of Lisbon, Venice, Verona and Beijing.